A nation's education system should be responsible for raising the next generation of citizens, propagating our national identity and cultural values to the next generation while imbuing them with the ability to think critically to ward off corrupting ideas. Successful nations, especially empires like the US, needs a common world view to glue citizens together... social cohesion, progress, and economic success go hand in hand.
In contrast, our dismal K-12 system is built to churn out 20th century factory employees rather than educated 21st century citizens. We treat school like a glorified day care rather than a vital cultural institution, leading to a tremendously wasteful and inefficient K-college system. It's ludicrous that most Americans would fail our citizenship test... which requires getting 6 out of 10 multiple-choice questions right. Ludicrous.
The goal should be training new citizens to be unbiased critical thinkers by exposing them to a flood of new ideas while teachers emphasize socratic questioning, debate, communication skills, research, and related skills (eg statistics). Disagreement is absolutely fine, that's the American way... as long as students have the tools and mindset to effectively research and debate new ideas, with the humbleness to change positions.
Ideally, education also would involve a mandatory exchange program to expose students to other lifestyles and subcultures while continuing to work through their school program.
Terribly inefficient. The whole system warrants refactoring.
K-12, tradeschools, internships/apprenticeships, college, med/law schools, adult retraining, enlistment, officer training... it's a ball of spaghetti. We need to review each component and the overall system through the lens of modern societal and economic needs.